Waft me some soft and cooling breeze (Henry Carey)

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• (Posted 2022-05-15)  CPDL #69243: 

Editor: Christopher Shaw (submitted 2022-05-15).   Score information: A4, 2 pages, 179 kB   Copyright: CC BY SA

Edition notes: Please click on the link for preview/playback/PDF download.

General Information

Title: Waft me some soft and cooling breeze
Composer: Henry Carey
Lyricist: Samuel Croxall
Number of voices: 1v   Voicing: Solo high
Genre: Secular, Art song

Language: English
Instruments: Unknown

First published: 1746
Description: This version, with this figured bass, from "Universal Harmony", London, 1746. The song appeared in several similar collections.

Original text and translations

English text

Waft me some soft and cooling breeze
To Windsor's shady, kind retreat,
Where sylvan scenes, wide-spreading trees,
Repel the raging dogstar's heat;
Where tufted grass and mossy beds
Afford a rural calm repose;
Where woodbines hang their dewy heads
And fragrant sweets around disclose.

Old oozy Thames, that flows soft by,
Along the smiling valley plays;
His glassy surface cheers the eye,
While through the flow'ry mead he strays:
His fertile banks with herbage green,
His vales with golden plenty swell;
Where e'er his purer stream is seen,
The gods of health and pleasure dwell.

Let us thy clear, thy yielding wave
With naked arm once more divide;
In thee my glowing bosom lave,
And stem thy gently rolling tide.
Lay me, with damask roses crowned,
Beneath some osier's dusky shade;
Where waterlilies paint the ground
And bubbling springs refresh the glade.

Let chaste Clarinda too be there,
In azure mantle lightly dressed;
Ye nymphs, bind up her silken hair,
Ye zephyrs, fan her panting breast;
O haste away fair maid, and bring
The muse, the kindly friend to Love;
To thee alone the muse shall sing,
And warble through the vocal grove.